Friends, lend me your eyeballs

Memorial Complesso del Vittoriano

It's the school holidays at the moment. Easyjet flies cheap to Rome and Naples, so that's where we're going. We're in Rome for 2 more days. We got here Wednesday night, thanks to Google directions.

Day 1, we walked out the front door, past some market, the Area Sacra Argentina and it's multitude of super friendly cats, Piazza Venezia, Forum and Colliseum. Then got the metro the wrong way.

Lone cyclist at Piazza Venezia

We then tried a bus, read the list of stops, and caught the right one. But it seems, it had already passed where we wanted to go, so it ended up taking us further the wrong way. We gave up for a bit, and gave the kids a break, at a great kids playground with a flying fox. We chatted with the locals. Not sure what they were saying.


We tried catching the train the right way this time. But now the ticket stopped working. We were within the 100 minute limit. The ticket said it's for one trip only. So bought another lot. After getting home, we realised this leg was also the long way. We've still got no idea about the buses around here.

When in Rome...

Day 2, we got a transport/museum pass so getting lost is no more expensive than going the right way. We walked the streets where there are no footpaths or skinny ones, but acres of parking. The EUR area is a traffic toilet. The Rome Civilisation museum is listed as one of the great places you can go with the Roma Pass. When we finally find it, there is a small sign on the door saying the museum is closed. The nearby prehistoric one is not bad, even if the kids made us belt through it super quick.

The 30 bus goes near us, but the destination says Laurentina. So we crossed the road and caught a 30 going the other way. Sadly, this was actually going to Laurentina, so once again we got a 15 minute ride the wrong way. Lesson no. 2 of Rome buses; the destination on the front is not necessarily the destination.

Trevi Fountain in the rain... and loads of it!

We're getting closer to working it out. Though the huge number of different routes, having no idea of the places and no bus map, means that after 2 days of bus use, it's still impossible to get from A to B, unless you're extremely lucky, or have an Italian internet connection. Despite entitling the user to all buses, the Roma Pass map has no bus information whatsoever.

It's been raining all day today and cold. In the afternoon, we walked pass the Spanish Steps, some expensive clothing stores, and the beautiful Trevi fountain.

Menton lemon festival

It started looking like being a lemon... 

Saturday, I helped Hugues sand, and then PF3 coat the walls of his new place, while Marie went mad with the kids.


Then Sunday was the Fete de Citron at Menton. There's two parts: the garden and the street parade. The garden looks to be the better of the two, with it's elaborate displays. It's 10 for each one, and we went for the street parade. The parade is just like Carnivale in Nice, but a bit smaller, and with lots of oranges and lemons.

But then we got a bit closer..

At the start we didn't see much, with the large crowd in front. Suddenly everyone started to leave. The parade continued, the boys picked up some handfuls of confetti, we got a view, and things got much more fun.

And all the performers were super nice.

Like you're the only one there.

Heaps of t and a, only one photo, and by Marie.

Personal confetti shower.

Closer to the floats.

Distant yet approachable.

Not much happening

Where else can you play in the sand and look at the snow

Just a quick post to say nothing much happening here. So let's talk about the weather.



It's warming up. The boys even wanted their window open tonight, and it's not the end of winter. It got them to sleep like magic.



The winter olympics are on. It's supposed to be cold, and it's in Russia. Yet it rained.

Louis is Rubina's amoureux. Ollie sits next to Leonie in class.

Normally, I ride to work dressed like a Ninja. Tonight I left off the ski mask, boot covers, and plastic sports jacket, which can be a bit boil in the bag. It was perfect.



It's been raining a lot here, so there's heaps of snow in the mountains. We went toboganning. The boys loved it.

Us and the Divoux. Check out the snow behind.

So, what else. . The carnival came to town. The kids got dressed up in costumes. There were 5 Brazilian girls in bikinis shaking it all. Sadly we had to watch the kids running around.


Marie had a weekend away with some girls in Bergamo. This weekend is the lemon festival in Menton. I'll be gasping for that one.

We went toboganning

In other news, the president is onto his 3rd first lady. As Colbert says, the first lady happens to be the last lady he's sleeping with. And hey seems like they won a couple of medals today, judging from what was on TV. Peugeot is no longer a family owned French company. They've been half taken over by DongFang.

The king and the cereal packet gladiator.